Park Avenue Armory almost never turns up on a weekend list, and this is the show worth breaking that habit for: the North American premiere of Simon Stone's Chekhov, played in Korean with English captions. Stone moves the ruined gentry to present-day Seoul, where the siblings are corporate heirs being outrun by newer money. Saul Kim's transparent glass house sits inside the Drill Hall, so you watch the family unravel the way a neighbor would.
What to expect
A tragicomedy of roughly two and a half hours with one intermission, staged in the Armory's cavernous Wade Thompson Drill Hall rather than a conventional theater. The company is Korean and performs in Korean, with English captions. The action plays out inside and around a see-through house, so sightlines and the sense of eavesdropping matter as much as the dialogue.
Good to know
- Performed in Korean with English captions, so a clear sightline to the caption panels is worth asking about at the box office
- The Wade Thompson Drill Hall is a block-long open space, not a proscenium house, and seating is built out for each production
- Runs about two and a half hours with one intermission
- The run is dark on Sundays
- The Lexington Avenue subway stops at Hunter College, a short walk from the Armory's Park Avenue entrance
- The Drill Hall can run cool even in early autumn, so bring a layer
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Common questions
Do I need to understand Korean?
No. The production is performed in Korean by a Korean ensemble with English captions, so the text is fully accessible to English-speaking audiences.
Where inside the Armory does it play?
In the Wade Thompson Drill Hall, the Armory's enormous open hall on Park Avenue, with seating built specifically for this staging.
How long is the performance?
About two hours and thirty minutes including one intermission.
Is this the same production seen elsewhere?
It is the North American premiere of Simon Stone's Korean-language adaptation, which relocates Chekhov's story to modern Seoul.
